Blind Life In Durham

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BLIND is a Registered Charity
No: 1124381

Limited by guarantee company
No: 6567582

Patron: Mr. D V Inglesby F.R.C.S.
(Consultant Opthalmic Surgeon)

Taking a blind bit of notice in County Durham

Research published this week by the 'Durham Sight Loss Survey Partnership', reveals what the blind and partially sighted people of County Durham think about services and support they have received.

An independent consultant was engaged and focus groups have been carried out this summer in a range of locations across the county.

The partnership, made up of Blind Life in Durham, County Durham Society for the Blind and Partially Sighted and Action for Blind People, funded by the National Lottery's "Awards for All", released the report on the 4th November 2008 at a conference in the Council Chambers, County Hall, Durham City, which indicated that many people were satisfied with most of the services they have accessed, however there are still issues for concern.

These concerns are:

• Lack of emotional support at the time of diagnosis and afterwards – less than half received this, yet rated it their most important need

• Poor provision of accessible information about services and equipment available

• An apparent lack of coordination between service organisations, considerable gaps in provision of needs

• Less than half had any awareness of the improvements to independence that rehabilitation services can provide and there was frustration about poor appreciation of the needs and difficulties of visually impaired people when using public and retail services

Following the launch at County Hall on 4th Nov, we hope that improvements can be made to these by ourselves and other agencies.

For a fuller examination of these matters, please access the full report in your preferred format using the links below.

Download the Survey 2008 Report in Audio (MP3) format. (note: this is a large 105Mb zip file)